


Fade like the Stars

by anr



Category: Aliens (1986)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 20:13:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/pseuds/anr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a different kind of fall, this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fade like the Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Re_White](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Re_White/gifts).



> Request: any and all retcon, Ripley/Hicks of any flavor and Bishop.

  


* * *

  


She still nightmares.

  


* * *

  


The _Sulacco_ wakes her -- wakes them both -- less than two days into their journey home, a priority one distress call, LV-418, a rock and a hard place. The déjà vu hurts.

"What do you want to do?"

 _Run_. Weyland-Yutani's standing orders on first responder responsibilities might not have changed since the last time -- she knows, she checked before they left Gateway -- but she's not Company this time. Not technically. (And not likely to ever be again, once they add the cost of this mission to her debt.)

"We'll launch a probe," she says though, slowly, and Hicks nods.

"See what we can see," he says, equally noncommittal.

The distress call loops as they stand there.

  


* * *

  


While they wait for the probe to scan the moon, she takes him down to medical and changes his bandages again. The skin grafts the med-pod applied after she finally got him out of the drop ship are healing well; soon he won't even need any salve.

"Ellen," he says, capturing her fingers when she moves her hand towards his face. He pulls carefully until she steps forward, standing between his knees as he sits on one of the benches.

She meets his gaze and holds it, staring, her free hand resting on his thigh. "Dwayne," she says, softly, and his fingers lace through hers.

The probe's return alarm sounds.

  


* * *

  


On the main flight deck again, they study the readouts with the same intensity they'd given to the floorplans on '426.

"Craft's from the colony," she says unnecessarily.

"No life signs," he says, flicking back to the low orbit images of the crashed transport ship.

They must have tried to get help, or maybe just escape, in the first couple of days, only --

Her fingers shake only a little as she keys in the coordinates for a nuke strike.

Hicks silences the distress call.

  


* * *

  


She checks on Newt and Bishop's cryo-tubes, and resets the controls on hers and Hicks', but she doesn't want to go to sleep again yet. Every time she does, the nightmare continues.

"Lot of rocks between here and Earth," he says when she finds him in the mess. He has a coffee waiting for her and she picks it up gratefully, warming her palms.

"How many transport ships did they have?"

"Officially? Two." He lights a cigarette. "On a continual rotation -- as one left Earth, the other left the colony."

She drinks her coffee. "And unofficially?"

He shrugs.

  


* * *

  


Even though she'd checked after her fight with the queen, even though she'd scanned and searched a dozen times or more before they first went into cryo, she does another sweep of the cargo hold, the drop ship, the access grates, ventilation and conduit shafts.

Just in case.

  


* * *

  


"What do you want to do?"

It's her turn to ask this time, watching as Hicks sits in front of the main comms console on the flight deck, fingers tapping an uneven staccato on the edge of a monitor. He doesn't look at her.

Behind him, she takes what, in her time, would have been the warrant officer's chair out of habit and stares out the primary viewscreen.

Eventually, he says, " _something_."

She's done her part, has fought this fight. _Twice_. For her, this is over. _It has to be._ And yet --

"Yeah," she says.

  


* * *

  


She falls asleep in the chair and when she wakes, heart pounding, breathing rapid, he is all that she can see. She calms a little.

"Ellen," he says.

He looks older than he is, she thinks. They both do, their chronological ages now closer to the truth than not. But when she touches him, when he drags his hands over her body and seals his mouth over hers, all she feels is life.

"Ellen," he says again, murmuring, pressing her name into her skin, pressing her back into her chair.

It's a different kind of fall, this.

"Dwayne," she breathes.

  


* * *

  


She stands beside Newt's cryo-tube and watches her sleep. In the bottom of the tube, she knows, there's a collection of ration packs and chocolate bars, dogtags and t-shirts, magazines and knives from the mess.

Across the bay, Hicks stands in front of the crew lockers, one of Vasquez's bandanas trailing from his good hand.

Her palm presses flat against her ribcage and holds there; her heart aches.

  


* * *

  


She wakes up Bishop.

"You want my advice?" he slurs, surprised.

She shrugs. "Depends on what you're going to say."

He accesses the _Sulacco_ 's mainframe and absorbs what they know, what they don't, what they should. When he tells her, she nods.

"Not bad," she says, the faintest hint of a smile in her voice, "for an android."

  


* * *

  


She checks the ship again.

  


* * *

  


Bishop has the mainframe calculate the hypotheticals, factoring in fuel and life support and weaponry, the efficiency of Weyland-Yutani's inevitable interception and interference, the locations of all known colony outposts in this sector of space, the amount of shipping traffic. She's surprised by how crowded this area is, now, compared to the last time. When the _Nostromo_ originally left Earth, this was the frontier. Now it's almost a weigh station, a hundred thousand souls or more completely unaware of the nightmare on their doorstep.

"I want to go back," Hicks says, their options on every monitor.

He doesn't say 'Earth', she notices.

  


* * *

  


In the end, she thinks, the choice was always going to be this: fight or flee.

Standing with Hicks on the flight deck, she watches him permanently disable the ship's automated status update feed back to the Company. When he's done, she keys in their course change.

In the end, she thinks, this was never going to be a choice.

The _Sulacco_ pulls silently to the right.

  


* * *

  


She kisses him in the starlight while they wait for Newt to wake, his hand heavy on her hip. He's carrying his rifle again, now -- they both are -- but she thinks it is the weight of his touch that grounds her more.

There are some places in the universe, she knows, you don't go alone.

  


* * *

The End

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGINAL URL: <http://anr.livejournal.com/520555.html>


End file.
